With a long history of colonial wars and struggles – and many superstitions, there are a fair share of places to visit in Mozambique which could fuel the fires of your imagination during your southern African safari.
From the first ships lost at sea to relatively modern hotels abandoned in a hurry, you will find a wide range of local legends to raise the hair on the back of your neck if you know where to look for them.
A Grande storm of unnatural circumstances
The Grande Hotel was once Beira’s finest, boasting 116 rooms, an Olympic-size swimming pool with plush cabana, multiple elevators and hundreds of staff.
Over the years the hotel hosted state weddings, served as a state residence for visiting congress members and even as a training ground for the Mozambique Olympic Swimming team before eventually becoming a refugee camp in 1981. Today it stands forlorn, left unattended for decades and unable to rise back up to its former glory. Is it haunted? Rumors abound, but the homeless people who now reside there are not telling.
You can drive past this grand old lady, but do not enter. Her secrets are guarded by unscrupulous characters.
Colonial architecture with a sinister history
Likewise, the once magnificent Vila Algarve mansion in Maputo remains trapped in a tumultuous past. The stunning interiors are left with no one to appreciate their beauty, and not even the resident desperados venture into the depths of the basement.
It is believed that the walls underground are still splattered with the bloodstains of tortured souls - unfortunates who were prisoners of the Portuguese Secret Police during unhappier times.
A haunted hotel, empty for more than 40 years
Further north, near Xai Xai the Choengoene Hotel is visited only by a salty sea breeze whistling past the empty pool through to the cavernous ballrooms, lounges and dining rooms.
Abandoned during 1975, when the Portuguese were forced to leave the country within 24 hours, the last residents of this hotel were a family that hid there when they were unable to make the curfew. Guerilla fighters found them and after a terrible skirmish they were taken captive, tortured and executed.
Rumor has it that their souls still hide there and that the sound of a telephone ringing still echoes through the hills from this derelict place at night. Ask for directions at the nearby restaurant where you can also find the way to a secret cabin in Xai Xai. Overnight guests of the cabin report have described how they have woken to the sensation of someone sitting at the end of their bed, or feelings of being watched while in residence.
Locals will tell you that their souls still hide there and that the sound of a telephone ringing still echoes through the hills from this derelict place at night.
If your thrills extend beyond the gorgeous beaches and underwater scuba diving treasures of Mozambique, get in touch and we will help add a little something extra to your southern African safari.
